It has become common for merchants to operate electronic marketplaces for their goods and services (collectively, “items”) as well as, or even in place of, conventional brick-and-mortar marketplaces. Such electronic marketplaces may include one or more network sites (e.g., “web” sites operating in accordance with a hypertext transfer protocol) providing graphical user interfaces (e.g., with network documents such as “web pages” specified with a hypertext markup language) that enable consumers to purchase the merchant's items. As consumers have gained experience with electronic marketplaces, they have developed certain expectations from electronic marketplaces in general including expectations with respect to electronic marketplace infrastructure services such as item discovery including search, item purchase including payment, item fulfillment including shipping, and account maintenance including security. As consumer expectations rise, costs associated with meeting those expectations can become significant.
To control costs, merchants may seek out specialist providers of electronic marketplace infrastructure services. Some merchants may wish to make use of such providers, while at the same time maintaining an appearance of a stand-alone electronic marketplace, for example, to avoid brand dilution by comingling with other brands in the larger electronic marketplaces. Often, merchants have invested significant resources in a custom stand-alone electronic marketplace, and desire to see the investment preserved as much as possible. Such custom stand-alone electronic marketplaces may be associated with a first network site development “platform” (e.g., a computer systems architecture that facilitates the development and maintenance of network sites), while a given infrastructure services provide may be associated with a second such platform. The cost (e.g., in time and/or resources) required to convert a network site from one development platform to another can be significant. Conventional approaches to facilitating such conversions are inefficient and/or ineffective.